


deep into that darkness

by PlacentaMilk



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Hurt, M/M, Memory Loss, Psychological Torture, Short Story, Torture, i have thousands of drafts, i might continue it, i probably wont, i swear i was done writing klance but here i am again, idk what else to tag here, maybe? - Freeform, no comfort, not yet at least, this isnt that long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 18:09:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19751050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlacentaMilk/pseuds/PlacentaMilk
Summary: peering, long I stood there





	deep into that darkness

**Author's Note:**

> or you could read this as the witch captures a blade of marmora and a red paladin. she wants answers. shes going to get them.

Lance wakes up slowly, his head spinning and his mouth feeling dry, like it's stuffed with cotton. He tries to take a second to orient himself, tries to figure out which way is up and which way is down but then there's a hand slapping across his face and his eyes are open. The room spins, and his vision is blurred but he can clearly see the galra witch standing in front of him.

Stark white hair, yellow eyes piercing him beneath her hood. Haggar.

"Wake up," She hisses, and the dim light in the room glows brighter with a snap of her fingers.

God, his head is absolutely throbbing. It's the type of pain that makes him feel like he's going to vomit. It reminds him of when he saved Coran from that blast and got a concussion and coma for his efforts.

"We'll be playing a little game, red paladin," Haggar says, her voice like nails on a chalkboard. She isn't pleasant to listen to, Lance finds. Even worse to be in a general vicinity of.

"Oh, I like games," Lance groans, closing his eyes and tipping his head back. He's tied up to a chair with a rope of all things. Hasn't the old bat ever seen a movie? Doesn't she know how easy it is to get out of these? He doubts she uses a rope with any of her galra prisoners.

As he tugs at them, though, he quickly realizes they're not just some random old ropes, they're laced with magic and they _burn_. 

Haggar hums, eyes unwavering from Lance's beaten down form. "Then you should want to play along with mine. I want answers, and you'll give them to me." She walks away from the red paladin's side and over to the blade's, which, she doesn't think he's even noticed his teammate yet.

"Doesn't sound like a fun game to me," He wheezes, the dryness of his mouth getting worse, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth.

"Oh, this will be very fun. For me. Every question you answer wrong or don't give me the answer to, I'll find my way inside of your half-breed blade and destroy him." Lance opens his eyes at this, the room spinning a little less, and finds Haggar across the room from him standing behind an unconscious Keith. "Is Lotor working with you?"

She knows he is. She knows Lotor had joined them, just about every liberated planet knew it. Might as well have Lotor's face painted on the side of Voltron itself. "Leave him alone," is what comes out of Lance's mouth.

"Not the answer I wanted. Is Lotor working with Voltron?" Haggar's hands come up and grip the sides of Keith's head, her fingers digging into his temples. Lance doesn't know what she can do, he doesn't know what she's already done, but he does know that he doesn't want her fingers anywhere near Keith.

"You already know the answer to that, you-"

-

Keith's head feels like it's on fire, and he feels like he's under the surface of actually waking up. He's there, but he's not there. Everything he feels has a numbness to it, he can barely feel the enchanted ropes cutting into his wrists, can barely feel fingernails digging into his temples. The blood trailing down the side of his face is hot and sticky, it feels like it's burning his skin but he knows realistically it's not.

"- _itch_ , leave him-"

The fingers grasping his skull like a lifeline turn into lightning and sear into his head. He gasps in pain but he can't force a scream out, air getting trapped in his throat. It hurts, it's borderline agony - no, it _is_ agony. His eyes fly open but he can't see anything besides white.

Across the room, Lance watches as Keith seizes up, his back arching off the chair and the vein in his forehead popping out.

"I gave you the answer! Stop!" 

Keith can barely hear over the pain, and he wonders briefly if he's dying.

The pain subsides, and his face feels like it's melting. He wonders if he's already dead.

He can't remember anything besides pain.

"Hmm. Tell me, red paladin, what plans does Lotor have? Why did he join you?"

Lotor's name grounds him. He knows him, he remembers him. Lotor joined them a couple months ago, and Keith... what is Keith doing here?

"I don't know."

The pain is back, and he gasps. His hands grab at the chair he's sitting on and he feels like he's tilting sideways. He feels like he's falling and he can't do anything but heave for breath. He can't scream and it's terrifying.

"I don't know! He said something about harvesting quintessence, stop hurting him! Keith!"

"Where is Lotor now?" Haggar asks, still letting her magic flow through the half-breed below her. She hasn't dug her way inside of his mind - not yet. She's saving that for later.

However, the red paladin doesn't answer. Instead of giving her the answer she wants, she watches his resolve harden, and his mouth set into a grim line. It's such a shame it's come to this.

The pain increases tenfold and doubles over its own weight. The scream tears itself out of Keith's throat and rubs his vocal cords the wrong way. He can feel her tear inside his mind, he can feel her inside his head. It's wrong, on too many levels. He can't hear Lance across the room, he can't hear himself screaming, he can't even think.

The white turns black and he passes out.

It's interesting, seeing into the Blade's head. Two emotions hit her the most, but she supposes the two delve into twelve. Sadness and anger. Anxiety and sorrow. The Blade is a hurting soul, and she uses this pain to her advantage, twisting his memories just to hurt him a little bit more before ripping them away. The red paladin across from her is blabbering on and on, probably feeling the magical ripple in the air, the hairs on his skin standing up. She doesn't focus on him, except- oh. That's interesting. There the red paladin is, dressed in blue armor. Banter being tossed between the two, back on Voltron's ship. _Allura's Castle_ bites the Blade, deep inside of his own mind. 

_Where is Lotor?_ She asks him despite knowing already that he doesn't have the answer. She can see his memories, his thoughts. He doesn't know.

_You're the one who can see me, you tell me._

She feels his mind slip away, the biting words slipping with him. She lets him go, both inside of his mind and outside. Her eyes open and focus on the red paladin across from her. "I can't see into your head, red paladin. But I can torture the answers I want out of you, and you _will_ give in to me."

-

 _Keith_.

He feels free. Entirely free. Actually, he doesn't feel much of anything. He can't feel the pain being burned into his skull anymore. Here, in the darkness, the lightning doesn't touch him. Her haunting voice can't follow him here.

 _Keith_.

He opens his eyes and the void that covered him is gone. Instead he stands on misty ground, the land stretching out for miles all around him. There's nothing but the light of stars and purple nebulas above him, the black darkness behind that. This is the same place they went when Voltron's paladins connected minds, he thinks.

He feels disconnected from his body, and when he looks down to see if he's actually standing on the ground, he finds that he doesn't have feet. Instead, the mist swirls around under him as if he wasn't even there.

_Keith. Look at me._

This time when Keith looks up, Shiro stands there. An easy and sorrow-filled smile on his face. "Shiro?" Keith asks with a start, eyes going wide as he moves to step forward. His words knock around the space they're in, echoing until they're too far and too lost to be understood.

_"Hey, Keith. Hang in there."_

"Where have you been?" Keith asks rapidly, his hands going to grab Shiro's shoulders, but instead they fall through him, as if Shiro was the mist underneath them. "What-?"

Shiro shrugs, and when Keith tries to find answers within his eyes, all he finds is unbearable sadness. _"I've been here the entire time, Keith."_

"Where is here? Do you know how long we've been searching for you? I've been so-"

_"I'm dead, Keith."_

The words wash through him, drenching him, chilling him to the bone.

_"There's nothing to find."_

This isn't real, Keith thinks suddenly. It's not, can't be. He was just... pain, he remembers that. Unbearable pain had consumed him, and he found himself here. Why can't- _"You know that I never liked when you went quiet."_

 _Fuck_ , Keith thinks. "This isn't real," he denies, because it's not. Shiro isn't dead.

_"Keith, you know that it is. You shouldn't be here."_

"Where is _**here**_?!" The raven asks, turning wide eyes on the man in front of him. "Tell me how to get you back!"

Shiro folds his arms across his chest, and Keith has seen it a million times. He's seen the empathetic look, the sad smile. "Don't," he asks, eyebrows furrowing. "Don't give me that look."

_"You need to go, Keith. Wake up. Buddy, I need you to open your eyes."_

"What?" Keith takes a step back from Shiro, the words coming out of Shiro's mouth not sounding like his own.

_Please don't tell me you're dead._

Shiro fades away, and with him, so do the stars and nebula above them. Only darkness surrounds him now, and he tries calling out for Shiro, tries yelling the man's name, but no words come out. He can't speak.

He can hear soft sobbing, sniffing of a runny nose, but it's muffled, almost like he's underwater. He wonders if it's Shiro, but Shiro was never much of a crier.

_I'm so sorry._

**Author's Note:**

> I might continue, I might not, who knows


End file.
